Literary Clusterfucks 2013

cmon mane

I think what tends to separate this particular case of abuse from the typical case is that the abused woman wrote a book and a publisher has published it, wherein she speaks as one with authority and that authority has been legitimized to a large extent, and from that position of authority she speaks not just about herself, but makes broad positive assertions about men, about women, about what their relations should be, and about how her relationship with this cowboy can be taken as a model or a template from which to draw many positive lessons.

Under that circumstance, you cannot simply say that abuse victims often identify with their abuser, often protect them and excuse them, and often assert that they love their abuser and because this is typical, it is excusable, even something we ought to empathize with. Although all this is true enough, it doesn't go far enough, because it doesn't contradict the authority which she has assumed and has been loaned to her by her publisher. One has to point out how toxic her conclusions are, how irrational her actions are, and how utterly bankrupt her recommendations are. Because they are, and they need to be exposed and repudiated.

That isn't being mean or ugly. It is refusing to enable her.

someday we'll look back on this thread and laugh, as if it were a dave chaparral sketch

xp Oh well as long as it's for her own good that's okay then, it can't possibly also be mean or ugly.

Literally Clusterfucks 2013

The only mean and ugly thing is the pro-abuse propaganda currently being sold as a charming memoir about cowboys.

No! It is GROSS and wrong and sad but it is emphatically not the only thing wrong about her situation, the presentation of this continuing story on the internet, or this thread. There are lots of things intersectingly wrong and mean and sad and part of what makes you/ppl sound "angry" or like they have some axe to grind is insisting that of all the things going on, only this woman is in the wrong or being bad.

The publisher is obviously being wrong too, but we shouldn't give a pass on this thing being sold in Borders as non-fiction to spare her feelings (and her bank account). It's sick.

This all could have been avoided if anyone had paid attention to Paula Cole.

Cathi Carol ‏@CathiCarol
@hoodedu @MizAlisa .... A missed opportunity to write about how a normal person can be taken in by an abuser; how to recognize it and leave.

Alisa Valdes ‏@MizAlisa
@CathiCarol @hoodedu This is exactly what I want to do. I am passionate about it now. Never thought I'd be "one of those" women...but I was.

She wrote this half an hour ago on her twitter. If this is how she feels she has an obligation to her readers and herself to disavow the current book and ask her publisher to withdraw it from the marketplace.

Borders hasn't existed for a while, son, you musta slept on that one.

damn

lol @ "this terrible woman! why won't she stop perpetuating domestic abuse?"

Uh, wait, what? Part 2? If you are asking the reading public to dip in again, you have to earn our trust the first time. And yet here you are, publicizing a book that is encouraging women to submit themselves to a romantic formula whose end sum is “painful, controlling, emotionally abusive, crazymaking.”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/01/10/the_cowboy_and_the_feminist_turns_out_to_be_a_story_about_abuse.html

I imagine Valdes took the post down because her publisher made her. Not really good for sales if it turns out that the message of your love story is setting people up for something close to rape. Believe me, I understand what it’s like to put your heart and soul into a book, particularly if it’s a memoir where you bare the worst of yourself. But as the cowboy would say, Alisa: Stop. It’s over.

This is how I feel, 100% ^

It's good that we cleared that up at least.

But as the cowboy would say, Alisa: Stop. It’s over.

hmm

It seems incredibly shitty to use the language of the person who abused her against her

Yep.

I think defending her right to push this morally abhorrent memoir, even if stemming from a place of understanding and sympathy, ultimately leads you to an untenable ethical position.

Why are you acting like her publisher is being strong armed into pushing her book?

there are subtle variances in the realm of understanding and sympathy that don't involve specifically defending her right to push this memoir.

It seems like the CW itt is that she can't be expected to not push this memoir because the advance was a lot of money.

book publisher wants to sell book shocker.

I'm not surprised that the book publisher wants to sell the book. I'm surprised that Valdes is willing to go along with it.

Basically what you are saying is that she should have destroyed herself professionally in the way you approve of rather than the way she chose without knowing the details of what went down between her and her publisher that is generating all of this weird doublespeak.

It seems like the CW itt is that she can't be expected to not push this memoir because the advance was a lot of money.

― Mordy, Thursday, January 10, 2013 4:45 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm 1000% sure that this is the position of nobody in this thread

this is like her eighth book. it's not going to destroy her career.

Is it more likely that she is doing her press tour for her book because she still thinks it's awesome or because a VP of Legal is telling her she has to or she will get sued into oblivion and she hasn't retained counsel yet

tbh i think it's very unlikely that the VP of Legal is threatening to sue her for writing that she was abused. it's certainly possible, but would be such a huge PR fuckup for the publisher if it got out.

Penguin Threatened to Sue Author for Saying She Was Abused

^ this is not a headline that Gotham/Penguin wants to see

Abuse is not an excuse for perpetuating abuse, which is what pushing this book on her audience is doing.

yeah man...it's like she's committing genocide with her dishonesty

A little more:

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/11/alisa_valdes_anti_feminist_romance_not_so_romantic/

In an email, Valdes tells me that, although she doesn’t dispute the truth of what she originally wrote in the post, she removed it at the request of her publisher. Speaking of her publisher, in the blog post in question, a cached version of which is still searchable online, she claims that her publisher has “essentially shunned” her as a result of the inconvenient real-world demise of her written fairy tale and writes, “I am deeply wounded by the stonewalling from my editor, as wounded as I ever was when the cowboy did it to me.” (I have yet to get a response from her publicist at Gotham Books to an email request for comment.)

all this becomes much easier to take if you come at it with the perspective that everyone is abhorrent from jump

In an email, she tells me, ”The relationship with the cowboy was rocky for most of 2012, with moments of great beauty and talk of marriage, to moments of tremendous and painful conflict.” She describes it as “on-again, off-again,” but it finally ended in September of last year. “I do think the relationship continued longer than it should have in part because I wanted to make it at least to the publication date,” she explains. “I eventually had to recognize that this was not a good reason to force something that didn’t work.”

It’s not that she’s entirely changed her mind, though. She considers herself a “Difference Feminist” (i.e., she sees men and women as having equal worth but as “not being necessarily the same or having the same abilities in all things”), and maintains that the cowboy helped her “to embrace my own female-ness in a way I had been trained to subsume.” She ended the email with a nod to her alleged abuser, “As the cowboy often said, there is the way things are, and there is the way we would like for things to be,” she tells me. “The only one that matters, ultimately, is how things are. We might not like it, and it might not be fair, but that doesn’t make any of it less true.” She has a new boyfriend now and, she says, he “wrote the cowboy a thank you note, for having ‘tamed’ me and made me a better woman, which I totally agree with.”

I think it is entirely possible to think her promo tour is nagl without letting either the publisher or the cowboy off the hook.

Which is to say, strongo otm.

It's true that its 100% inconceivable that her publisher could be like the Catholic Church or Penn State or any other massive institution when faced with a reputation-destroying scandal

right now no-one looks v good at all. wish there was some more clarity here, hope it comes out in the coming weeks. not that life ever gets tied up in a bow but I'd like to understand more of what went down and how etc

or what strongo said

it's not 100% inconceivable but it's Penguin. you think they've never dealt with an author promo crisis before? xxp

I gotta say, this bit:

“I do think the relationship continued longer than it should have in part because I wanted to make it at least to the publication date."

also not totally a great comparison being as how in the catholic church / penn state metaphor that makes valdes a pedophile.

which I totally agree withwhich I totally agree withwhich I totally agree withwhich I totally agree withwhich I totally agree withwhich I totally agree with

wow this thread

emily and elmo totally otm though at a certain point i had to start reading

oh great she's a pedophile too

i am resisting the urge to tell ilxors i think are probably decent people to fuck off, but some of you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

lol i had to stop reading, i meant; i'm a little het up